Its 5:30pm and I’m still in my pjs. Its the first Saturday in over a month that I haven’t had some place to be, something I had to do or someone I had to meet up with.

These are my favorite kind of Saturdays; spent reading, sleeping and catching up on TiVo-ed recordings of the week. I never got them growing up. My parents thought to spend a day this way was a waste of time. That is, until they retired and spent most days reading and napping, when they weren’t traveling and seeing the U.S. from their truck and trailer. They just weren’t like me.

Me? I need downtime. I need time alone. I mean, A-Lone. Me, myself and I — and God. No one else. No friends, no parents, no roommates. I have rarely had this kind of time, mostly because I have rarely lived alone. I had roommates from the time I moved out of my parents’ home till I moved overseas in 2003 — except when I briefly had an apartment of my own in my late twenties, more out of need than of choice.

As an adult I always felt guilty for sleeping in on Saturdays and holidays, as most of my roommates were like my parents, either extroverts who were filled with energy by being with people or filled with conviction that a day not filled with activities was a day wasted. I grew up believing that my feelings and choices were basically bad, or not allowed at all, so I spent my life pretty much like Julia Roberts’ character in "Runaway Bride" — taking on the attitudes, beliefs and fancies of those I most wanted to be loved by and denying my own desires to the point I didn’t even know what they were. I spent my life believing my longing to spend the day in my pjs just kicking back and reading or napping was at the very least selfish and shameful, not to mention sinful. Most of my roommates, I can pretty much guarantee, to this day think I’m crazy to want to spend a Saturday the way I have today.

But that’s okay. I think they are the crazy ones to want to start a day off work getting up at 6am and going strong and hard all day. To me that’s not relaxing. Nor is it fun; especially when you’re just going to go. You know, to just be busy. And especially when the long day isn’t followed by a day of real rest.

Yet that’s the way I spent most of my days throughout much of my adult life. I got up not  because I was ready or I wanted to, but because I could hear my roommates up and felt embarrassed that they might be thinking that I’m so incredibly lazy. Yes, sounds crazy. But to me, what people thought of me was much more important than what I wanted. And what they thought of me determined what I thought of myself.  told you: "Runaway Bride".

That’s not to say I don’t enjoy days I get up early and go-go-go. I had a wonderful time working hard and long at Jenn’s charity event two weeks ago. And I had an incredible time attending Rosh Hashanah services with my friend Donna at her reformed synagogue last Saturday morning. Its just that I come away from it exhausted and longing for a "real" Saturday; one where I can just chill out and not go anywhere.

The crazy thing is, its taken me until I was nearly 41 years old (and two years of counseling) to really embrace this part of me and recognize that I am not sinning or wasting a day by spending the day as I have today, reading and napping and just hangin’ out. This is part of who I am, part of who God made me to be. Perhaps what they say about life in your 40s is true: you really do finally get comfortable with who you are and start not caring about what other people think. —Truthfully, I think its more the effects of my counseling, more about God using that time to transform me and teach me how to accept who I He made me to be, rather than an effect of age… but that’s just me.

I’m a huge introvert with a huge heart and love for people. My dad once pointed that out to me years ago, saying that I had been blessed and cursed with inheriting dichotomous aspects of both my parent’s personalities, but I couldn’t really understand it or embrace and comprehend the complexity of it then. My mom was such a people lover, and a huge extrovert. Huge. Dad was a huge introvert. It’s a testament to their love for God, His love for them and their willingness to partner with Him and with each other in this thing called marriage that they stayed together for 61 years of marriage, only separated by their deaths. I had the blessing (which sometimes feels like a curse) to be given dad’s introversion and mom’s huge heart for people.

People exhaust me. Being with them drains me of energy that can only be recouped by being alone. But people also fill my heart with unspeakable joy and deep pleasure. I love them and long to be with them. Finding the balance between my desperate need for alone time to rest and recharge and my desperate love for people and longing to know them deeper and more intimately has been a life-long struggle. But now that I live alone, I’m beginning to find that balance.

And the freedom (from self-condemnation) to have my pajama days and fully embrace and enjoy them. I’m finally recognizing that I am not wasting my day spending it the way I have today. In fact, I’m giving myself a much needed gift, a very good thing for my spirit and soul, as well as my mind and body.

I need the rest I got today. Between my age, my weight and the fact I’m titrating down to elimination my anti-depressant, my body needs even more this time to catch up on rest it’s not getting during the week. And my soul needs time to contemplate, time to absorb what it’s taken in, endured and experienced during the week. And my spirit, my sweet introverted spirit, just needs time to re-energize. I’m like my iPod. I need to be connected to my "source" and just left alone for a long while (in the case of my iPod and long, loooong while — sheesh, 5 hours and counting!) to recharge my battery. My friend, Wendy, calls it Selah. A pause. I guess Saturdays like today, my pajama days, are my Selahs.

I need more of them.

Do you have Selahs in your life? What do they look like for you? Are they Pajama Days, or Park Days or Library Days? How do you pause, reflect and recharge?